Rules

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Contents

General Rules

  1. Low ratios will result in severe consequences. Users with a ratio of 0.3 or less who have downloaded over 5GB will be demoted to Peasant, and banned after 28 days. If you are demoted to Peasant and download an additional 10GB then you will be banned instantly! (See the FAQ for other details.).
  2. Selling Underground Gamer invites, selling upload credit, or trading upload credit for purchased items is strictly prohibited.
  3. Do not intentionally engage in disruptive behavior.
  4. Do not intentionally defy the Staff's expressed wishes.

Download rules

  1. You must have legal rights to the file you are downloading.
  2. Please only comment on torrents that you are downloading, have downloaded, intend to download, or which you have something constructive to say about.
  3. Do not give your .torrent files to anybody as they contain your passkey. Doing so may jeopardise your account.

Upload Rules

Safe Year:

  1. The current safe year is 2002 or older.
  2. This means for content checked by year, the original date of release or airing must be before January 1, 2003.

General Upload Rules:

  1. All uploads must be thoroughly tested and verified prior to posting.
  2. All uploads must include a proper description.
  3. Password-protected files and/or self-extracting compression is not allowed.
  4. Non-English material should mention the source language in the torrent title and description.
    1. Regardless of language used in a description, it must contain a section in English describing the upload's content.
  5. Identical duplicates of existing torrents (regardless if active or dead) are not allowed. Legitimate duplication can occur under one or more of the following conditions:
    1. The upload is for a different platform.
    2. The upload is in a different language/region encoding.
    3. The duplicate upload offers something distinct: lossless/lossy versions of a CD, full DVD-R vs. XviD versions of video, full game CD images vs. game rips or higher bitrate (for audio or video content).
    4. The duplicate's description is a significant improvement over the original upload.
  6. All uploads should be as small as possible:
    1. Redundant or duplicated content should be eliminated from any potential upload.
    2. Files which are used to ensure data integrity should be removed (e.g., PAR files for split archives).
    3. When compressing files to an archive, a standard format ( such as .rar, .zip, or .7z) must be used. Either single or multiple/split archives may be used.
    4. All archives must use maximum compression permitted by the chosen format and host system.
  7. Do not manually tag upload's name with additional information other than name of the contents and tags specifically provided through the torrent upload form. Only allowed exceptions are for language and CD-rip tags.
  8. Quality, user-created content will be allowed only after being cleared in the Safe Content forum. User-created content not cleared prior to upload will be subject to automatic deletion.

Game-Specific Upload Rules:

  1. PC Games released in a safe year are safe to upload.
  2. For Console games, please consult the safe consoles list:
    1. All games for consoles designated safe are permitted on this site, regardless of year or other circumstances.
    2. All games for consoles designated unsafe are not permitted on this site under any circumstances.
    3. Games for systems not on safe consoles list (iPhone etc) must be released in a safe year to be safe to upload, otherwise they are unsafe.
  3. ROMs should not be packaged with emulator, unless the package is for a single specific safe console. (e.g. NES roms for PlayStation), or as noted below.
  4. Commercial PC re-releases and PC emulated versions of safe games are allowed, provided they do not contain new content. This means Good Old Games (GoG), and SEGA Genesis Classics PC titles are now safe, while for example, the Sega Classics Collection (which contains new 3D versions of classic titles) remains unsafe.
  5. Collections should be dated with the year of the first item in the collection (in the case of complete rom sets, this is the year of the console's release).
  6. Rips should be marked in the torrent title, and the removed contents should be outlined in the torrent description. Disc images missing audio tracks from the original disc are considered rips.
  7. All games (whether CD-rips or full CD images) must be compressed using standard methods (e.g. zip, rar).
  8. Gaming magazine cover-discs are to be uploaded to their respective category (e.g. Playstation games magazine discs to Playstation), and must follow the rule above.
  9. Official content released free of charge (i.e. patches, updates or mods) for safe games are allowed regardless of the year the patch or update was released, but must be packed with the intended game and may not be uploaded individually.
  10. Content released commercially (e.g. paid game expansions or mods) must be released in a safe year, and for a game that is safe to upload.

Music-Specific Upload Rules:

  1. OSTs of games, game-based media, and other game-related soundtracks are allowed, regardless of year of release.
  2. A standard sound compression format must be used (e.g. mp3, ogg, or flac).
  3. Lossless encodes are allowed only if made directly from the source material.
  4. Individual tracks must be be named appropriately and uniformly (song name at minimum) and collected into a single folder.
  5. Albums must not be compressed into archives or contain multiple tracks in a single file.

Literature-Specific Upload Rules:

  1. Only literature directly related to or inspired by video and/or tabletop games is allowed (including literary fiction and comic books), regardless of year.
  2. Any copy protection or embedded security must be removed.
  3. Freely available guides are not allowed.
  4. Non-OCR'd/OEF'd scans must be uploaded either as a .pdf or in an archive containing high-quality .png or .jpg images organized in same order and volume division as the source material.

Video-Specific Upload Rules:

  1. Media (e.g. films, videos) directly inspired by games (e.g. Sonic/Mario cartoons, Resident Evil movies) and video game review/discussion shows (e.g. Gamesmaster, VideoGaiden) are allowed; however, media which inspired games (e.g. Lord of the Rings, Spider-Man) is not.
  2. All commercial video originally aired or released in a safe year is safe, provided it is allowed under the previous rule. Any commercial video aired or released on or after this date is unsafe. Commercial video is defined as video released without a license to freely redistribute, modify or alter, regardless of whether the video itself was distributed for profit by the copyright holder. If in doubt, ask in the Safe Content forum.

BIOS, Emulator, and Application-Specific Upload Rules:

  1. BIOS Images for and emulators of PCs and consoles on the safe consoles list are allowed, regardless of year.
  2. All applications for systems on the safe consoles list are safe.
  3. Dev kits, SDK's and technical documentation for safe consoles are safe.
  4. DOS applications released 1994 or earlier are safe. Versions of an application released later are not safe.
  5. Software aides for tabletop games released in a safe year are safe.
  6. Any other type of program that is not a game, is not used explicitly for playing games and is not specifically permitted by the above rules is not allowed.
    1. Examples include CD/DVD burning utilities, ripping tools etc. These programs are very easy to find on other sites (links to these tools within the forums are allowed).

Freeware Rules

  1. Freeware games and applications are subject to same rules as commercial ones for the same platform, including - if applicable - the safe year and safe consoles list.
  2. A link must be provided in the URL box to the official download page or website (games without an official source should be uploaded without the Freeware flag).
  3. Freeware may be removed by staff if the developer has expressly requested content removed.

Requests

  1. Please make Requests in the appropriate location.
  2. All requests must conform to the Upload Rules. Do not make requests which would otherwise violate the site's rules. If you are unsure, ask in the Safe Content forum.
  3. Requests require a ratio of .8 or greater. Do not use the forums to circumvent this system.
  4. Requests should be both specific and targeted toward an individual torrent. Users filling a request cannot receive partial credit, nor can uploaders fulfilling their own offer.
  5. Although the system has no inherent limits on the number of requests which can be posted, please use discretion. Moderators may consider an excessive number of requests to qualify as spam, and take appropriate action.
  6. Before creating a request, please search the appropriate sections (including the torrents section) to ensure that you are not creating a duplicate entry.

General Forum Guidelines

  1. Please ensure all questions are posted in the correct section!
  2. The following are not permitted in any forum: flaming, bumping, double posting, or systematic foul language.
  3. Spam is permitted only in the forums under The Attic: Spam and Forum Games.
  4. English should be the only language used in all forums (except the International Hub) or in the main IRC channel.
  5. Please use web-optimised and appropriately sized images (not larger than 800x600). Consider using thumbnails or external links for larger-sized images.
  6. Requesting invites to other trackers is restricted to the Power User/Elite User/VIP Forum. Invite trading and trading of accounts is prohibited on the forums.
  7. Abuse of the karma system (such as mass down/up voting of a particular user or forum topic) is not permitted.

Avatar and Signature Guidelines

  1. The allowed formats are .gif, .jpg and .png.
  2. Avatars should be 150px wide and no more than 200px high.
  3. The combined size of one's avatar and signature must be less than 150kB total.
  4. Signatures should be of reasonable height, and not stretch the post area on short posts (approx. 200px max).
  5. Collapsed signatures are OK so long as they do not exceed the 150kB combined signature & avatar total.
  6. Do not use potentially offensive material involving religious material, animal / human cruelty, nudity, ideologically charged images, or any other images that are not safe for work (NSFW). Mods have wide discretion on what is acceptable. If in doubt PM one.
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